I have appreciated the stand-alone nature of Panda notes being a file on the disk. This allows me to save the files in a DropBox folder and leverage Dropbox’s rollback history. I have unlimited rollback on Dropbox, and I can look up a previous version of a file/note using the Dropbox UI and optionally restore it. I also have Time Machine as an option to view/restore an old version.
Further, Dropbox handles sync across all my devices so I could turn that off in Bear.
When Bear uses an SQLite database to store notes, the file-based rollback feature is not available, but it is very important.
I understand some people prefer the database architecture and the roll-back is not important, or even a consideration, to them (Concerned about Panda not working within a database) but perhaps this can be an option?
Alternative pitch: ask the devs to make a zapier integration so you can customise your versioning? (I don’t actually use zapier because any app i would use it for has an API i can access, but many others use zapier for the kind of thing you are talking about)
Thanks for taking the time to leave a post and suggestion.
There is no current plans for this (file storage) for Bear.
Regarding Panda and its current storage option, it was just meant to be a throwaway tester for the new Editor for Bear.
However, due to customer feedback we are now thinking about possibly also having Panda as a standalone Editor after it’s added into Bear.
Our priority at the moment is to complete and implement our new Editor for Bear. Everything else will be re-evaluated after the new Editor is released, but i’ll pass on your suggestion to the team for them to think about and discuss moving forward.
A request, if it hasn’t already been considered, for a sidebar to which you can add folders. I’m currently using Panda as a replacement for Typora for markdown, quicker access to my files is all I really need nwo.
I know this is an old post, but I just wanted to add my +1. I don’t use Bear, I have no use for apps that store my text in their own databases (hiding the file system from me) and on their own servers (thereby potentially introducing privacy issues). However, I would love a good editor with access to the normal iCloud Drive file structure. I’ve been getting by with iA Writer on the iPad and Typora, recently, on the Mac, but Panda would be a great substitute and I would be happy to pay a decent subscription fee for it.
I do rather like the idea of file storage; I have a lot of text notes in Bear, but also a lot a attachments it doesn’t understand, and I often have to download from bear to open on the Mac. To a certain extent is makes more sense to keep these on the file system rather than bloating the database (makes it searchable in Finder, allows tagging etc).
While this is probably not going to happen with Bear (although other apps such as nvUltra or Noteplan use filesystem rather than a database), would pay good money for a version of Panda that would work with the filesystem (with a sidebar like @kimaldis would be perfect).
+1 to using Panda with the Mac filesystem. I’m already doing this - storing my .panda files in my iCloud Drive and using folders and native Finder tags to organise. A sidebar would be nice, but even more important to me would be to have .panda files be searchable in Spotlight and support for Quicklook in finder.
I agree with the above that attachments are handled really nicely in Panda… I can open up an attached PDF, make annotations and save back to the note without the hassle of dealing with duplicates that comes with Bear and similar notes apps.
+1 for file system. I’m not currently a Bear subscriber, but if Panda gets integrated with its nice RTL support and file system support, I’d love to support. For me it’s crucial for file system support because I have so many other non-MD documents that go along with the markdown file I am working on (ie: a folder for a school class that has my MD notes alongside PDFs, PowerPoints, etc).
Has anybody found a way to make Spotlight index .textbundle .textpack or even .panda files?
I can use Spotlight to search for .md files just fine, but sometimes I need to attach images to my Panda documents that require saving to a different format.
One of the reasons I like Bear so much is I don’t have it pollute the filesystem, nor force me to worry about where the files live.
If it were an option I would be okay, but as an experienced database developer I know it would be a huge task to add and then maintain support for all functionality in both Bear and Sqlite, AND make it performant, so I would selfishly prefer that the development team spend time on other features.
Features like a plugin system, so that a 3rd party could create an add-on to sync from the DB to the filesystem, for example.
Question for the OP, and all other +1ers: Is file-base storage really what you want, or is that just what you envision to provide your desired benefit of being able to rollback content?
New Panda beta 2024 is already available for Mac, using filesystem only, with same editor as Bear. (Old Panda was the early alpha for Bear 2.0 testing the new editor)
Bear will continue to use DB
So, the Shiny Frog team is currently developing two very similar apps – same editor, but:
Bear – DB only
Panda – filesystem only (.md, .textbundle, .textpack)
This has already been decided and announced.
I will use them both, but for different purposes …
So basically file based storage would help me to completely separate work and personal notes. I could have them in totally different backend sync service even (iCloud vs e.g. Dropbox or OneDrive). This is one of the strong suits of Obsidian or even Craft that nowadays supports local storage (they call it “External Locations”).
I guess there is multiple ways to solve the need for having multiple “Notebooks” but having actual files that you can store in different locations would be one way to solve it.
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